1.2 Practice Paragraph 1.

2 - Frequency, ampl itud e, and waveform

Here we again encounter the selector- object that we just learned how
to use, w hich will allow us to compare two different signals. We activate t he
patch, clicking on the "startwindow" message and hearing the f irst signal (after
setting whatever frequency we'd like in the float number box) when we click
on the message box that contains the numb er 1, and raise the fader. We see
in the scope- rectangle the sawtooth waveform. The phaso r- object is an
oscillator that generates a ramp that goes from O to 1, and cyclicly repeats at
a frequency that we can adjust exactly as we did w it h cycle- . The phaser-
object produces a sawtooth waveform that is "cut in half", so to speak, because
it goes from O to 1, instead of from - 1 to 1, oscillating on ly in the positive
range.2 5 Since dig ita l signals are noth ing but numbers, we can change th is
"half" sawtooth into a "whole" by applying a pair of arithmetic operations: f irst
mult iply t he output of phaser- by 2, resulting in a ramp running from O to 2,
and then subtract 1 from t his ramp, resulting in a new ramp that runs from -1 to
1. We see these operations rendered in t he second signal of the patch, and by
clicking on '2', we can hear the "who le" sawtooth; we see on the oscilloscope
that it is bipolar, crossing into both positive and negative territory.

Now open the f ile 01_04_triangle_square.maxpat .

select the position of

mute generator 1 triangle the peak duty cycle
0 1 2
~hasor- ~ 2 square ft:o.s 1
~ ..
~

...
triangle- 0.5
...
vs.square~

..,. selector- 2
.........

--~
~··
s~ dac-
..
Fig. 1.26 The fi le 01_04_triang le_square.maxpat

This patch contai ns an object, part of the Virtua l Sound Macros library, which
you first see evidence of in the Max window (<Command-m/Control-m>): if you
see the message "vs.square-.· No such object", you have not installed the library
containing t he Virtu al Sound M acros26 and th is library cannot be found in
Max' search path.

25 This kind of oscillation is named unipolar oscillation,aswe saw in Section 1.2 in the theory chapter.
26 The Virtual Sound Library is a library of objects created especially for this book that augments t he
standard objects found in Max/MSP. You w ill find more detail on this library and on external libraries
in general in Interlude A, which follows th is chapter.
76